Introduction

COGGES lies 9 miles (15 km.) west of Oxford
and ½ mile (0.4 km.) east of Witney. (fn. 20) The
ancient parish formerly covered 2,285 a.
(920 ha.); it included the residual medieval urban plantation at Newland, effectively a part of
Witney, and, on the east, the hamlet of High
Cogges. Wilcote, to the north, although a separate ecclesiastical parish from the Middle Ages,
was a hamlet of Cogges for civil purposes until the mid 19th century. In 1932 Cogges civil
parish was dissolved and divided between Witfney (225 a.), South Leigh (878 a.), and Ducklington (1,182 a.). (fn. 21)

The ancient boundaries corresponded in
places to those described in charters for the
adjoining manors of Witney in 969 and 1044 and
Eynsham in 1005, and in a perambulation of
Wychwood Forest in 1298. (fn. 22) The long, sinuous east boundary, called 'the way' in 1005, is in
places deeply sunk and embanked, and may be a
prehistoric or Roman trackway leading southfwards from the ford at Ashford Mill on the river
Evenlode to Gill Mill on the river Windrush; (fn. 23)
from Gill Mill a probable Roman road runs
south-westwards through Cokethorpe Park
towards Bampton. (fn. 24) On the north, the boundary
followed the northern perimeter of Cogges
wood; from the west corner of Osney Hill, it
ran south-west along Madley brook, Madley
Lane, and field-boundaries to Witney, and
thence south-east along the Windrush to Gill
Mill at the southern tip of the parish.

The parish lies mainly on the Oxford Clay,
rising to 110 m. in the centre of the parish
between High Cogges and Newland. The central eminence perhaps suggested the form of a
wheel (O.E. *cogg?), giving the parish its otherwise unintelligible name. (fn. 25) The clay declines
westwards to bands of gravel and alluvium bordering the Windrush; the church, priory, and
manor houses stand isolated on the edge of the
parish beside the river, on a small Cornbrash
island in the floodplain. (fn. 26) In 1797, (fn. 27) as in 1987,
the only substantial area of woodland was
Cogges wood in the north-east. River meadows
run along the parish's entire south-western
edge.

The Witney-Bladon road, an important
Anglo-Saxon route called the port way in 1005
and Woodstock way in 1299, (fn. 28) skirted the parish
on the north. Another ancient west-east road,
from Witney to Eynsham, may once have traversed the two Cornbrash islands of Witney and
Cogges, one of the narrowest crossing points in
the Windrush floodplain; (fn. 29) its line runs to
Cogges over a footbridge which may be the site
of the 'Tidreding ford' mentioned in 969. (fn. 30) The
route was insignificant after the early 13-th century, (fn. 31) but the presence of an early major crossing may explain the scale of the 12th-century
manorial buildings. The later medieval road,
called via regalis in 1212-13, (fn. 32) ran from the
north end of Witney through Newland and
thence eastwards to Eynsham. That and the
Witney-Bladon road were both turnpiked in
1751; the tollgate for the Eynsham road stood at
Newland at the bottom of Cogges hill, near
Madley brook, and in the 20th century the road
survived as the main trunk road from Oxford. (fn. 33)
From Newland a valley-side trackway followed the Windrush terraces southwards towards
Stanton Harcourt; it seems to have crossed the
Thames at Bablock Hythe and continued to
Abingdon, and was called Abingdon Lane by
1599. (fn. 34) At inclosure in 1787 it was confirmed as
a public highway; (fn. 35) its earlier course is probably
represented by the former farm track connecting
Manor Farm with the later road. By the 18th
century it was linked with the heath and with the
Witney to Bladon road on the north by a winding road through High Cogges village, also
confirmed at inclosure. (fn. 36) Clay Street, mentioned
in the 16th and 17th centuries, ran east from
near Shores Green into South Leigh, and may
have been connected with the possible Roman or
prehistoric trackway running along the boundary; the modern road from Shores Green to
South Leigh was apparently newly laid out
across the heath at inclosure. (fn. 37)

A network of paths, many of which continued
after inclosure, linked the villages with the heath
and with Cogges wood on the north, with Hill
Houses on the east, with Gill Mill and the river
Windrush on the south, and with the surrounding parishes; in 1212-13 Newland tenants had
right of way through North field to Cogges
wood along the line of Madley brook. (fn. 38) The
road through Cogges village, formerly passing
south of the churchyard, was redirected in 1860
to pass north of the priory house, crossing
the Windrush c. 200 yd. north of the former
crossing. (fn. 39)

There was a post office in Newland by 1864. (fn. 40)
The Witney branch of the West Midland Railway, later part of the G.W.R., was built across
the parish in 1861, the nearest station being at
Witney; the line was closed to passenger traffic
in 1962 and to goods traffic in 1965, and was
dismantled by 1971. (fn. 41)

Neolithic material has been excavated near
Manor Farm and the priory. (fn. 42) Aerial photography has revealed several Bronze Age and Iron
Age sites near the north-west and south-west
boundaries of the parish, including a line of
ploughed-out round barrows, (fn. 43) and a bronze
palstave has been found near Newland. (fn. 44) A ditch
south-west of High Cogges, cutting off the spur
of Spring hill, has been interpreted as remains of
an Iron Age promontary fort. (fn. 45) A substantial
Romano-British settlement site near Gill Mill
has yielded some 2,000 coins, metal objects, and
building debris; (fn. 46) several urns said to be of
Upchurch Ware have been found near Northfield Farm. (fn. 47) A cropmark site immediately south
of the Cornbrash island, including two rectilinear buildings, may be Anglo-Saxon. (fn. 48) Finds
of pottery suggest that the Cornbrash island was
settled for much of the Anglo-Saxon period. (fn. 49)

Figure 5:

Cogges and Newland c.1215

Figure 6:

Cogges c.1250

In 1086 only 3 servi were listed, other inhabitants perhaps being omitted accidentally. (fn. 50) In
1279 there were 38 tenants on the two manors. (fn. 51)
In 1377 the poll tax was paid by 92 people in
Cogges and Wilcote, (fn. 52) which suggests that 14th century depopulation may have been below the
Oxfordshire average. There were 25 contributors to the subsidy of 1524 and 160 communicants in 1547, and 79 adult males swore the Protestation Oath of 1642; 158 men and women
were noted in 1676, although a few probably
lived at Wilcote. (fn. 53) There were said to be 80
households in 1759, 74 in 1768, and c. 70 in
1774; (fn. 54) by 1801 there were 66 houses inhabited
by 70 families at Wilcote and Cogges, the total
population being 343 of whom c. 10 lived at
Wilcote. The population fell before 1811 but
thereafter grew rapidly; in 1821 it was 452 and
by 1851 had reached 814, the increase being
attributed to the success of the blanket and glove
industries. As in many Oxfordshire parishes the
population declined rapidly in the later 19th
century and by 1871 was only 664; thereafter it
again rose, reaching 790 by 1901 and 888 in
1911. In 1951 the population of the ecclesiastical
parish, with almost the same boundaries as the
former ancient parish, was 809. (fn. 55)

The main settlement of Cogges was the closegrouped cluster of the church, the priory, and
two manor houses. The exceptional character of
the group resulted mainly from 12th and 13th-century manorial developments described below. (fn. 56) A small planned town, Newland, was
built in 1212-13. The existence of a medieval
nucleated village remains unproven; traces of
earthworks south of Manor Farm and extending
into its curtilage may represent a deserted medieval village, (fn. 57) and it is possible that tenants were
moved from there during the 13th-century rearrangements.

The 11th-century manor house, which Manasser Arsic gave to Fecamp abbey c. 1100 to
provide a site for the priory, lay immediately
north of the church. (fn. 58) Two oval moated enclosures south-west of the church evidently mark
the castle or manor house of the Arsics and the caput of their barony between c. 1100 and c.
1230. In the 17th century foundations were
frequently dug up in a ground south of Cogges
church called Castle Yard, (fn. 59) and massive 12th-century foundations have been excavated on the
northern moated site. (fn. 60)

Another manor house, later Manor Farm,
probably originated with Archbishop de Grey's
purchase of half the manor in 1241; it was called
the archbishop's court in 1242. (fn. 61) The older,
moated site remained the capital house of the
other half of the manor, and was still called the
court of Cogges in 1279; (fn. 62) it may have been
abandoned when the manor was reunited in
1338. A royal confirmation of the archbishop's
holdings in Cogges in 1242 (fn. 63) described the
boundaries of land west of Manor Farm and of
the large manorial fishpond to the north-east.
The fishpond, mentioned in 1232-3 as the
eastern boundary of a proposed vicarage
house, (fn. 64) is rectangular with large banks; the
banks partly survived house building in 1984,
when excavation showed them to be post-medieval in their present form. (fn. 65) Manor Farm (fn. 66)
contains a 13th-century range (now the hall,
though not necessarily so from the outset) with
an original door and window, perhaps built by
Archbishop de Grey. There are traces of
another medieval range at right angles to it, and
the original house apparently had a courtyard
plan; the dairy, which abuts a third side of the
courtyard, is also medieval in origin, and remains of a fourth range were excavated in 1989.
In the early 16th century the hall was floored
over, reroofed, and given a substantial double
screen and a wall fireplace. In the late 17th
century the Blake family added a large east
wing. There are extensive farm buildings of the
17th to 19th century. (fn. 67)

Cogges priory (fn. 68) was the English cell of Fécamp abbey between c. 1100 and the late 14th
century. By the late 12th century it was nonconventual and functioned mainly as an estate
office, from which the priorbailiff with one or
two companions administered Fecamp's English
assets. The early 12th-century buildings, which
were possibly on a claustral or quadrangular
plan, were derelict in the 1150s and replaced
soon afterwards by a storeyed chamber-block. A
small open hall and service-rooms were added in
the mid 13th century. After the confiscation of
the priory the building fell into decay; in the
early 17th century part was remodelled as a
farmhouse, with separate rooms for the parochial chaplain. (fn. 69)

In 1212-13 the lord of Cogges, Robert Arsic,
founded Newland, a small planned town of a
familiar early 13th-century type. (fn. 70) He divided
40 a. of his demesne between 26 named tenants,
who were to build a house on each acre and pay
for it 3s. on entry and 1s. yearly thereafter. (fn. 71)
Since several tenants held more than one acre
each it seems likely that they intended to develop and sublet the land, and at least one,
Robert, chaplain of Westbury, was almost certainly non-resident. The development was
clearly stimulated by the growth of nearby Witney, but unlike Witney it failed: only seven of
the 1s. rents may be identified in 1279. (fn. 72) By the
mid 18th century there were only a few houses
scattered along the street. (fn. 73) The land lay on
either side of the royal road from the bishop of
Winchester's land, which presumably lay in
Witney parish at the north-west end of Newland; 20 plots on Lady's croft, partly next to the
bishop's land, and on 'Borhill' (the Burrell close
of 1776 and immediately north of the manorial
fishpond) (fn. 74) were evidently along the south-west
side of Newland street, and 20 in the croft called
'le Hangre' were presumably along the north-east side. Forty strips of c. 1 a. each would have
fitted into the available space, and two on the
north-east side survived in 1982. (fn. 75)

In 1219-20 the bishop of Winchester acquired part of Cogges priory's Grimesmead, a
transaction evidently associated with a rent of
16s., first collected by the bishop that year,
'from 16 messuages in the meadow next the
bridge towards Cogges'. (fn. 76) The tenements, presumably those over the parish boundary south-east of the road from Witney bridge to Wood
Green, and which backed onto Grimesmead,
clearly represented an extension of Witney to
link with its neighbour Newland; such developments on both sides of the Windrush may
explain the replacement of the direct west-east
road through Cogges in favour of the more
northerly route through Newland.

There is no evidence for the existence of a
hamlet at High Cogges during the Middle Ages,
and the village may have originated later as a
group of farmsteads on the edge of the heath: in
1604 a small cottage built on the common illegally, perhaps near High Cogges, was allowed to
remain. (fn. 77) The village was presumably well
established by 1695 when a school was founded
there, (fn. 78) and several surviving buildings are
17th-century, including, north of the village
street, the north range of High Cogges Farm
and the nearby stone granary, and south of the
street the cottage called nos. 9-10. By the mid
18th century High Cogges was larger than
Cogges; there were then several labourers' cottages and other buildings, many of them later
demolished, along both sides of the village
street, and there were cottages on the heath west
of the road from High Cogges to Shores Green.
Most buildings are of coursed limestone rubble
with stone slate roofs, although Ladymead Cottage and nos. 9-10 are thatched. In 1829 most of
the labourers' cottages attached to Great High
Cogges farm were said to be hardly worth
repairing. (fn. 79)

There were outlying farmhouses on or near
the sites of the later Springhill, Northfield, and
Clementsfield Farms by 1767; (fn. 80) Clementsfield
may be identical with the earlier Flemingfield,
on which a house was built c. 1600. (fn. 81) Following
inclosure in 1787 most farms remained centred
on existing homesteads. (fn. 82) Springhill Farm was
largely rebuilt in the mid 19th century, and
extensive repairs and additions were made at
Clementsfield Farm c. 1882. (fn. 83) Cholsey Farm
was newly built after 1833, (fn. 84) but most new
building was confined to Newland, where a large
number of stone-built terraced houses were
built along the Oxford road in the 19th century
to house the rising population employed in the
Witney blanket industry and other urban occupations; by then Newland effectively formed
part of Witney. (fn. 85) Newland House, on the south
side of Oxford road, was built in the late 18th or
early 19th century, and was later the home of the
Early family of Witney. (fn. 86) Other houses were
built in the earlier 19th century along the newly
established Witney to South Leigh road, including those later called Broad View, April Cottage,
and Field View; adjoining buildings associated
with a smithy and agricultural implement works
were added later in the century, but have since
been demolished. (fn. 87)

The water supply, even at Newland, was from
wells until the early 20th century. (fn. 88) By 1939
water was supplied by Witney Urban District Council, and gas and electricity were available,
but in the late 1940s some houses on Church
Lane, between Cogges and Newland, still had
only gas lamps and standpipes and no mains
sewerage. (fn. 89)

The site of the Hare and Hounds, mentioned
in the 1730s and 1740s, (fn. 90) is unknown. In 1775
there were three public houses, the Star, the
Crown, and the Axe, and by 1780 there were six,
including the Crown, the Axe, the George, the
Swan, and the Plasterers' Arms. At Newland,
the Griffin was so named by 1786, and the
Carpenters' Arms by 1822; from the early 19th
century they were the only two public houses in
the parish. (fn. 91) In the later 19th century Cogges
vestry met at the Carpenters' Arms. (fn. 92)

In the late 1970s and 1980s large housing
estates were built on agricultural land immediately east, north, and south of Cogges village,
extending from Newland on the north to Spring
hill and the Witney bypass on the south; the
road from Stanton Harcourt was redirected to
skirt the eastern edge of the estates, joining the
Oxford road near Gibbets Close Farm. (fn. 93) Building continued in 1988, and there was infilling at
High Cogges and along South Leigh Lane.

In 1974 the Oxfordshire County Council
opened Manor Farm and its outbuildings as a
museum of farming and rural life in Edwardian
Oxfordshire.